Researching or reproducing 'race'? Problematising racialised difference in a British primary school.

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• Dr Caroline Howarth, Social Psychology Institute, LSE
• Tuesday 01 May 2007, 13:00-14:00
• Seminar Room, Social and Political Science.

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This paper discusses the ways in which psychologists have studied children’s understanding of racial categorisation and suggests that we need more focus on the ways in children challenge and transgress racial categorisation. I illustrate the ways in which children contest representations and practices that ‘race’ with material drawn from a case study from a predominantly white British primary school. 22 children from a range of cultural background volunteered to discuss their views and experiences of ‘race’ and racism. An analysis of their accounts reveals that racialised difference is something that is understood as either ‘real’ – in that it can be seen, touched, and even caught from ‘the other’ or something that is constructed, imposed and damaging. The analysis focuses on the ways in which children question and problematise racism and find ways to propose agency and connection. This highlights the possibilities for racialised others as agent and not (only) as object of the racialising and racist gaze, and presents the case for thinking and researching beyond racialising representations.

This talk is part of the Centre for Family Research Seminar Series series.

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